The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in a July 22 notice modified its internal operating procedures concerning petitions for en banc rehearings. The stylistic update says that if at any time before a rehearing vote takes place, a majority of the panel that issued the decision in question wishes to make major substantive changes to a decision or give further consideration to the petition, the panel will inform the en banc court that the panel wants to take the petition back for further action. "Upon such notice, any pending poll will be withdrawn," the new rule said. "The panel shall expeditiously inform the full court of any such action on the petition, and if the panel grants less than all of the relief requested, any judge may request a response to the petition for rehearing en banc or a poll within 10 business days of the panel’s notification to the full court."
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
Eastern Pacific Chartering (22) (EPC22), a Singapore shipping company, alleged in a July 21 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware that Louis Dreyfus Company Freight Asia (LDCFA), a subsidiary of a Dutch merchant firm, violated its contract by damaging cargo. The suit would send LDCFA a nearly $3 million bill for breach of contract and cost of attorneys and related fees for an arbitration proceeding in London that kicked off due to the damaged cargo. ECP22 alleges that LDCFA's faulty stowage plan soiled the goods (Eastern Pacific Chartering (22) v. Louis Dreyfus Company Freight Asia, D. Del. #22-00958).
CBP's findings in its Enforce and Protect Act investigation on wooden cabinets and vanities from China were arbitrary and an abuse of discretion, Skyview Cabinet said in a July 18 motion for summary judgment at the Court of International Trade. "Simply put, CBP failed in its investigation duty, believing that it was confronted with evidence of basic transshipments,” Skyview said (Skyview Cabinet USA v. United States, CIT #22-00080).
The Court of International Trade should circumvent the remand process and order the Commerce Department to grant exclusions to Section 232 steel and aluminum duties, steel company NLMK Pennsylvania argued in a July 22 brief. Likening its experience with the exclusion process at Commerce to "a bad remake of Groundhog Day," the plaintiff argued that Commerce has repeatedly ignored the record evidence which plainly shows that the U.S. companies do not have the capacity to fill NLMK's requests (NLMK Pennsylvania v. United States, CIT #21-00507).
The following lawsuits were recently filed at the Court of International Trade:
The Court of International Trade in a July 22 order consolidated three customs cases concerning the proper classification of electric scooters, known as hoverboards. Two of the cases, including the now-lead case, were brought by 3BTech, while the remaining action was brought by Pro-Com Products. The cases were launched to argue that the hoverboards were classifiable under Harmonized Tariff Schedule subheading 9503.00.0090, which provides for "Tricycles, scooters, pedal cars and similar wheeled toys; dollsʼ carriages; dolls, other toys; reduced-scale ('scale') models and similar recreational models, working or not; puzzles of all kinds; parts and accessories thereof: Other," and allows subject goods to enter duty-free (see 2112100053) (3BTech Inc. v. United States, CIT Consol. #21-00026).
The Commerce Department improperly deducted Section 232 steel and aluminum duties from antidumping duty respondent Nippon Steel Corp.'s (NSC's) U.S. price, the exporter argued in a July 22 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Becoming the next company to make the claim, NSC argued that Section 232 duties are unlike the ordinary customs duties that are considered U.S. import duties and are in fact "far more similar" to antidumping duties, countervailing duties and safeguard duties, which are not deducted from U.S. price (Nippon Steel Corporation v. United States, CIT #22-00183).
The Court of International Trade should rule against the Commerce Department's move to reject questionnaire responses submitted 30 minutes late, antidumping respondent Zhejiang Zhouli Industrial argued in a July 21 complaint. Explaining the circumstances of the late submission, Zhouli said the rejection was a "drastic measure that was not warranted" and resulted in an adverse facts available rate. It urged the court to find the rejection to be an abuse of discretion (Zhejiang Zhouli v. U.S., CIT #22-00177).
Zhe "John" Liu and GL Paper Distribution owe the U.S. nearly $1 million for evading antidumping duties on steel wire hangers from China by transshipping the wire hangers through Malaysia, the U.S. argued in a July 21 complaint at the Court of International Trade. Alleging that Liu and GL Paper negligently avoided paying the duties, the U.S. took to the trade court to seek payment of the penalties, which equals the domestic value of the steel wire hanger entries made by GL Paper in 2017 (The United States v. Zhe "John" Liu, CIT #22-00215).